2. The Will As A Rational Faculty
The Will and Intellect
2. THE WILL AS A RATIONAL FACULTY
(Questions on the Metaphysics IX, q. IS) Text of Aristotle: "It is clear that some potencies will be nonrational but others will be with reason. Hence, all the arts or productive sciences are potencies."
Is the difference Aristotle assigns between the rational and irrational potencies appropriate, namely, that the former are capable of contrary effects but the latter produce but one effect?
[Arguments Pro and Con1 Arguments that the distinction is inappropriate: first as to the rational potencies:
[I] Anything having a potency or power is capable of doing what is in its power; therefore, it could perform opposites [simultaneously, if it were rational].-Some try to escape this conclusion by saying, as Aristotle himself seems to say in the above text, that a rational power does not have the ability to produce contrary effects simultaneously, although it does possess simultaneously the potentiality for opposite effects. But this evasion is no good. At that moment when it has one of the contraries, I ask: Could it have the other present or not? If it could, we have what we propose, for it seems opposites are had simultaneously. If not, then this power at this precise moment is capable only of this contrary.
[2] Also there is this second argument. What is unable to do anything is certainly not a potency, but that which has to do with opposites, since it is incapable of having contrary effects at the same time, seems unable to do anything unless it is determined [by something else such as desire or election], as the argument goes in the text of ch. 4. Once determined, however, it seems able to do but one thing; therefore insofar as it is a potency it seems to be capable of but one thing.
[3] Thirdly, if the distinction were appropriate, then it would follow that the will could tend to the opposite of what its end is and could will evil under the aspect of evil just as well as it could will the opposite of such things. But the consequent is false, because, as Aristotle puts it in Bk. VIII, ch. 8: "Freedmen are not at liberty to act at random."
Aristotle's distinction is not appropriate for irrational potencies either:
[4] To begin with, the sun is capable of producing opposite effects in the terrestrial world, for it dissolves ice and dries clay; nevertheless it is an irrational power.
The Will as a Rational Faculty
[5] Also, the Philosopher admits in ch. 7 that "every potency is at the same time capable of contradictory states" and declares that this holds good also for active potencies.
[6] Also, according to Aristotle, the rational is not related to both contraries per se, but only to the one it possesses as a habit, whereas the privation of such a habit"it can only have per accidens. But an irrational potency is able to have contraries in this fashion, for cold is an accidental cause of heat, and throwing a ball against the wall is the cause of its rebounding. Therefore, the distinction Aristotle makes is not appropriate.
To the contrary is the Philosopher's statement in the text cited above.
[Body of the Question} As for the question, granting the distinction to be well made, we must first see how it is to be understood and then what its rationale is.
[Article I: How Is the Distinction to Be Understood?} As for the first, keep in mind that any active potency whatsoever, be it a power to act in a certain way or an ability to produce something, is such that so long as its nature remains unchanged, it only does what it can do of itself. Frigidity, remaining frigidity, for example, cannot warm or draw heat from itself if it is not this sort of agent. No matter what the circumstances might be, if something associated with it peripherally, for instance, could produce heat in something, it would never be frigidity qua frigidity that would do this. When we speak of an active potency for opposites, then, be these contradictory or contrary states, it means that with no change in its nature, either falls equally under the scope of its power. But when such a potency has to do with opposite actions, it means that, keeping its unitary character, it suffices to elicit the said actions of itself. And if the action of an active potency is labelled "act" in the sense explained in the third article of the fourth question [i. e., act qua form], then all that has to do with opposite actions or action has to do with opposite acts, but not vice versa. However, this concern with opposite actions or action should be understood to include the negation of action [i. e., the ability deliberately not to act when all conditions for acting are present].
This will become clear in the second article. Now, it is not the relationship itself that we call "active potency," which relationship is listed among the number of correlatives, but an absolute nature [i. e., something nonrelative such as substance or quality], which represents the proper foundation for several relationships towards opposite effects.
The Will and Intellect [Article 2: What Is the Rationale for the Distinction?] As for the second point, Aristotle seems to have understood the distinction to stem from the fact that a natural form is a principle for making only one of a pair of opposites, that which resembles itself naturally, just as this is this and not its opposite. But a form that is in the intellect, in the way that knowledge informs the mind, is a principle for representing opposites by an intentional likeness, just as knowledge is a virtual likeness of opposites [e.g., medical science is knowledge of both health and sickness], since one of the contraries includes the privation of the other. But the agent is active in regard to what can be modeled according to the form by which it acts. For this reason, then, Aristotle appears to have introduced the distinction.
[I. The Opinion of Others] This argument, however, is attacked on multiple grounds:
First, because a natural form can be the originative source of virtual opposites, as it clear in the case of the sun.
Second, it seems to assume that the intellect or its knowledge is the only rational potency (which is false, as will be shown later). This assumption appears even more expressly in ch. 4 where [Aristotle] concludes that a rational power has to do with opposites and it does nothing unless it is determined to one or the other of these opposites.
What determines it goes by the name of appetite [Le., desire] or deliberate choice. This would seem to exclude desire or will from the concept of a rational potency. What follows makes this conclusion even more obvious. There Aristotle seems to say that once the rational power is determined in this way, it acts necessarily, just as the irrational power does of itself. Hence, it seems that properly speaking a rational power is not the combination of both intellect (which he assumes has to do with opposites) and the determining desire (which he requires as necessary if anything is to occur).
Thirdly, the proof that the intellect has to do with opposites only privatively appears invalid, for a contrary, though it includes the privation of the other contrary, does not include such precisely, since the other has a positive nature, and thus there is some knowledge corresponding properly to its entity that is not gained precisely through knowledge of its opposite. In fact it is known only in a qualified sense through the knowledge of its opposite.
[2. The Opinion of Scotus] As for this second article, then, we must first investigate the distinction itself and then see what Aristotle thought about it.
The Will as a Rational Faculty
fa. The Distinction Itself: Nature and Will] As for the first, keep in mind that the primary distinction of active potencies stems from the radically different way in which they elicit their respective operations [rather than from what they are concerned with]. For if we can somehow distinguish them because one acts in regard to this, another in regard to that, such a distinction is not so immediate [i.e., radical or basic]. For a power or potency is related to the object in regard to which it acts only by means of some operation it elicits in one way or another, and there is only a twofold generic way an operation proper to a potency can be elicited. For either [I] the potency of itself is determined to act, so that so far as itself is concerned, it cannot fail to act when not impeded from without; or [2] it is not of itself so determined, but can perform either this act or its opposite, or can either act or not act at all. A potency of the first sort is commonly called "nature," whereas one of the second sort is called
"will." Hence, the primary division of active potencies is into nature and will-a distinction Aristotle had in mind in II Physics when he assumed there were two incidental or per accidens efficient causes: chance, which is reducible to nature; and fortune, which involves purpose or will.
Suppose someone seeks a further reason for this distinction. Just why does nature have to do with only one sort of action? i.e., if it has to do with this or that, why is it determined of itself to cause just this effect or these effects, whatever they may be, whereas will, by contrast, has alternatives, i.e., it is not intrinsically determined to this action or its opposite, or for that matter to acting or not acting at all?
One could reply to such a question that there is no further reason for this. Just as any immediate effect is related to its immediate cause primarily and per se, without benefit of any mediating cause-otherwise one could go on ad infinitum looking for reasons-so an active cause
[as opposed to a material or other "cause"] seems to be immediately related to the action it elicits. One can give no other reason why it elicits its action in this way except that it is this sort of cause. Yet this is precisely what one is [foolishly] asking a reason for. Hence, just as "Heat heats" because it is heat, nor is such a proposition mediate [i. e., a conclusion], but rather it is a primary proposition in the fourth mode of per se predication, so also is this: "Heat is determined of itself to heat." "The will wills" and "The will does not will in a definite way by reason of some intrinsically necessary specification" would be similar sorts of statements.
[Two objections] Against this it is first objected that the proposition "The will wills" is contingent. Now, if the will were not determined of itself to will, how would any contingent proposition be immediate?
The Will and Intellect Secondly there is this objection. Why postulate this indeterminacy in the will if it cannot be proved to follow from the nature of the will?
[In which case "The will wills" would be a conclusion and not a per se proposition of the fourth mode.] [Solutions] The answer to the first is that the contingent does not follow from the necessary. This is clear if you consider some contingent proposition. If it is immediate, we have what we seek; if not, then there is some proposition that is intermediate; but this other premise from which it follows is also contingent; otherwise a contingent proposition could be inferred from necessary premises [which is logically impossible]. But if this intermediate premise is contingent
[according to the objector], there must be some further contingent proposition from which it follows; and so ad infinitum, unless one stops with some proposition that is admittedly immediate [or axiomatic].
What Aristotle says near the end of the Posterior Analytics, Bk. I, confirms this. There his meaning is that opining occurs both as a truth that is "propter quid" (that is it is expressed in terms of a first principle or immediate proposition) and as a factual or "quia" proposition that needs further proof. And so it is with the proposition under consideration, "The will wills A." If there is no further cause or mediate reason why this is the case, then our proposal is conceded [viz., that it is a first or per se proposition]. If there is some reason or cause, such as "Because the will wills B," then one inquires further. Somewhere, however, you must stop. Where? Why does the will will this last?
There is no other cause to be found except that the will is will. Now, if this last proposition were necessary, it could not be the sole premise from which something contingent followed.
As for the second objection [i.e., that indeterminacy must be proved from the nature of the will and hence a priori], the proof here is a posteriori, for the person who wills experiences that he could have nilled or not willed what he did, according to what has been explained more at length elsewhere about the will's liberty.
[A doubt] A further doubt arises about the aforesaid. What reduces such a potency to act, if it is of itself undetermined towards acting or not acting?
I reply: there is a certain indeterminacy of insufficiency, based on potentiality and a defect of actuality, in the way, for instance, that matter without a form would be indeterminate as regards the actuation given by the form. There is another indeterminacy, however, that of a superabundant sufficiency, based on unlimited actuality, either in an unqualified or in a qualified sense. Now, the first sort of indeterminacy is not reduced to actuality unless it first is determined to some form by
The Will as a Rational Faculty something else. Something indeterminate in the second sense, however, can determine itself. If this could occur where some limited actuality exists, how much more where the actuality is unlimited! For it would lack nothing simply required for an acting principle. Otherwise
God, who, in virtue of his indeterminacy of unlimited actuality, is supremely undetermined in regard to any action whatsoever, would be unable to do anything of himself, which is false. Take this example: fire has the ability to heat, neither do we seek anything extrinsic to fire itself that determines it to bum. Suppose, without losing any of its perfection as heat, it were given the perfection of coldness, why should it not be able to determine itself to heat something, as before?
Nevertheless, this example is not quite similar, as will be pointed out later in answering the initial argument. But the indetermination ascribed to the will is not like that of matter, nor, insofar as it is active, is it the indeterminacy of imperfection, but rather it is the indeterminacy of surpassing perfection and power, not restricted to some specific act.
[b. What about the Mind of Aristotle?] But how reconcile the aforesaid interpretation with the mind of Aristotle, who distinguished, not between nature and will, but between irrational and rational potencies, understanding "rational" apparently as referring only to the intellect, as the second objection claims?
I reply: intellect and will can be compared either with the proper act each elicits or with the acts of other subordinate powers over which they exercise a kind of causality-the intellect, by showing and directing; the will, by inclining and commanding. Of the two, the first comparison is clearly the more essential. From this standpoint the intellect falls under the heading of "nature," for it is of itself determined to understanding and does not have it in its power to both understand and not understand; or as regards propositional knowledge where contrary acts are possible, it does not have the power to both assent and dissent. If, as Aristotle seems to say, some one type of knowledge has to do with opposites, still with respect to this knowledge the intellect is not indeterminate of itself. Quite the contrary, in such a case it would elicit of necessity an act of intellection, just as it would in regard to knowledge that involves only one thing. The will, however, has the ability to elicit an act proper to itself in opposite ways, as was stated earlier. It is in this vein that we assume only two productions in the divine [namely, that of the Word and that of the Holy Spirit] and put intellect [whereby the Word is spoken] in the same class of principles as nature. Now, Aristotle apparently says nothing about this first and more essential comparison.
The Will and Intellect The second comparison or relationship seems to be accidental, as it were, for two reasons. One, because these potencies [of intellect and will] are related to the acts of the other potencies they control only by means of acts proper to themselves, since their proper acts are prior to these others. The other reason is that the intellect in particular does not have the character of an active potency properly speaking, according to [Aristotle] in Bk. VII, ch. 7. And it is of this second relationship that Aristotle appears to be speaking, and he assumes some order such that some knowledge of opposites is first required. But this initial knowledge is of itself insufficient to cause any extrinsic effect, for as Aristotle argues in ch. 4, it would then produce opposites. But this does not seem to follow unless the intellect also knows of such opposites. So far as its causality over things outside itself is concerned, the intellect is determined of itself in regard to what it directs. Hence, not only as regards its own acts is it not rational, but it is not fully rational even as regards the external acts it directs. As a matter of fact, speaking precisely, even as regards its intrinsic acts it is irrational. It is rational only in the qualified sense that it is a precondition for the act of a rational potency. A determining will follows, but not in such a way that this potency of the will is determined of itself to one alternative and hence the combination of intellect and will together has to do with one effect, as the objection above claimed. Rather the will, which is undetermined as regards its own act, elicits its act, and through its elicited act it determines the intellect insofar as the latter has a causal bearing on some external happening. Hence Aristotle says: "I call this desire or prohaeresis, i.e., choice." But he does not call it "will," that is to say, a potency. And so if intellect is called a "rational potency," the aforesaid distinction [between rational and nonrationa I] must be understood in the way explained above. For the distinction is not applicable to the intellect's own acts nor insofar as the intellect concurs with the acts of subordinate powers solely by means of its own act, for in both these ways it falls under the heading of "nature." Nevertheless it falls under the other heading [i.e., of "will"] insofar as earlier its own act is subject to acts of the will.
But if "rational" is understood to mean "with reason," then the will is properly rational, and it has to do with opposites, both as regards its own act and as regards the acts it controls. And it has to do with opposites not in the way that a nature, like the intellect, acts, which has no power to determine itself in any other way. But the will acts freely, for it has the power of self-determination. Properly speaking, however, the intellect is not a potency with regard to external things, because if it does have to do with opposites, it cannot determine itself, and unless it is determined, it is unable to do anything extra.
The Will as a Rational Faculty
[3. Scotus' Reply to the Objections to Aristotle Raised in r] With this in mind one could answer the objections raised earlier to the way of Aristotle.
I reply to the first about the sun. A natural form, if it is not limited and is a principle of opposite effects in materials disposed to receive such, is still determined to produce these effects in the same way as a form with but one effect is determined to produce a single effect. For the sun does not have it in its power to generate an alternative to the form it produces-when the recipient of this or that form is presentany more than it would have if it could produce but one form. The will, however, is not the sort of principle that is of itself determined in regard to its action, whether the action has to do with this or that opposite, but it possesses the power to determine itself in regard to either alternative. And this makes clear why the example cited above about heat and cold being found together in the same agent is deficient. In short, there simply is no appropriate example whatsoever that could be given, because the will is an active principle distinct from the whole class of active principles which are not will, by reason of the opposite way in which it acts. It seems stupid, then, to apply general propositions about active principles to the will, since there are no instances of the way it behaves in anything other than will. For the will alone is not this other sort of thing. Hence, one should not deny that it is the sort of thing it is, just because other things are not like it.
For there is nothing contradictory about a created active principle having the perfection we attribute to the will, namely, that it is not just determined to one effect or to one act, but has many things within its scope and is not determined towards any of these things that fall sufficiently within its power. For who would deny an agent is more perfect the less it is determined, dependent, and limited in its action or effect? And if one concedes this in regard to a lack of limitation as regards many contrary effects, even in a case [like the sun}, where this is associated with a natural determination towards everyone of them, how much more perfect would it be if we were to assume the second sort of indeterminacy [i. e., of superabundant sufficiency] to be added to the first! For this sort of contingency is more noble than necessity, as was pointed out in Bk. VII (in the question raised there about the chapter "On the Necessary," namely, how it is a matter of perfection in God that he causes nothing necessarily). Consequently, if this perfection we ascribe to the will is not opposed to the notion of a creative active principle-and the will is the highest such-then such perfection ought reasonably to be attributed to the will. And this is a better assessment of the case with the will than the earlier example about the
The Will and Intellect combination of heat and cold. The reasoning that seems to underlie our opening text from Aristotle, consequently, could be treated as follows. If the selfsame knowledge enables the intellect to deal in some way with opposites, as the text indicates, then an active potency even less limited should be able to do this even better; i.e., while retaining its integrity it could determine itself to either of the alternatives shown to it. Otherwise, the initial potency for opposites would seem to have been given in vain, for without a second principle [like the will] an intelligent agent would be unable to do either. In this way, the argument would rest on the dialectical rule a minori, and not be an instance of reasoning from a proper cause, for knowledge is not the proper cause of the aforesaid distinction.
As for the second objection, Aristotle did not exclude the will from the rational potencies, unless you restrict the meaning of "rational potency" to what is incompletely such, namely, the knowledge of opposites. But Aristotle acknowledged that such an incomplete potency could cause something external only if it had some additional determination from another source. Now, I ask: What is the source of this determinate choice? It can only come from a potency distinct from reason that is able to choose. For reason is not a determining factor, since it has to do with opposites with respect to which it cannot determine itself, much less determine something other than itself. Or if it were to determine itself, it would be to produce opposites simultaneously, as Aristotle argued would be the case with a productive agent.
Neither does this other factor [distinct from reason] determine itself necessarily to the opposite alternative, for then the intellect would not be in even remote potency to opposites. Hence, this other potency determines itself contingently, and once it has done such through its own act, as a consequence it determines the intellect. Aristotle, then, at least hinted that this other potency of itself has to do with opposites in such a way that it is self-determinative towards either alternative. And in virtue of its act already elicited determinatively, he assumes it is determined as regards the work of something exterior
[viz., the intellect] which of itself had to do with opposites in such a way that it was impossible for it to determine itself. And thus by showing in the fourth chapter how this incomplete rational potency proceeds to act, Aristotle clearly seems to imply that there is another complete rational potency (in the sense of the distinction he postulates here), and that these two [potencies of intellect and will] together with their [proper] acts concur to produce the external effect.
Properly speaking, the executive power is not in contradictory potency to the effect it carries out, since it is only rational by participation. But the full meaning of a potency for opposites is found formally in the will.
The Will as a Rational Faculty As for what Aristotle adds, however, about a rational potency, once it is determined [by choice or desire], being necessarily restricted to what is desired and that it must do this, one could note that the necessity in such a case is not absolute. For if the antecedent-for instance,
"This is willed" -is not necessary, then neither is the consequent. If such a volition exists necessarily, then the consequent (namely, what is done externally) is also necessary. But if the necessary implication is merely "The will wills this external thing; therefore, if not impeded, it will do this," Aristotle would be saying nothing more than that nothing occurs without some prior cause being first determined to do this. The sole exception is the volition itself that follows the intellectual apprehension of the alternatives, and it is this volition that determines what takes place outside. In this way one could gloss or explain his statement at the end of the chapter: "Even if one had the will to do both at the same time, one will not do them. . . for this is not a potency for doing both contraries at the same time." Why should this not apply to the will as well? Yet he had argued earlier, at the outset of the chapter on rational potency, that its simultaneous ability to produce opposites seems to be a good basis for distinguishing it [from the nonrational], because the way it will act will be in accord with its potentiality, but it [will not act all at once] in every way it has a potency to act. Now, the potency characteristic per se of an incomplete rational potency, as has been said, is natural so far as opposites are concerned.
Therefore, so far as itself is concerned, it will be not only simultaneously capable of opposites, but capable of producing opposites simultaneously, and therefore, if this potency were to produce them on its own [i. e., without benefit of will], it would produce them simultaneously. The situation here would resemble that of the sun, which produces opposite effects at the same time in the diverse receptive subjects that are brought near to it, and if it were related to such different effects in equal measure, and only one object, equally receptive towards such opposite effects, was placed near the sun, the latter either would do nothing to it or would produce such effects in it simultaneously.
Objection: the intellect is not equally disposed towards opposites; therefore it would act in accord with the stronger pull.
I reply: it is true that with only a single item of knowledge, representing something positive together with its privation, the intellect is not equally disposed towards both but relates towards one per se and the other per accidens. However, with positive knowledge of both alternatives [the intellect] could be the cause of opposites. Otherwise, how would [Aristotle's] inference based on inequality follow?
The Will and Intellect But it is not this way with the will. For if it has to do with opposites, only virtually does it have to do with them simultaneously. But it does not actually have to do with both at once, because it is not related to them in the manner of nature. Rather it has the potentiality to determine itself to either alternative with the other alternative before it, and therefore it will act in this way.
And in this way, perhaps, one could explain this fourth chapter, where much is said that could refer to the will, though some statements seem to militate against such an interpretation.
But then one might ask, why does he so frequently call the intellect a "rational potency" and not the will, though admittedly, from what has been said, he hints of this?
One could say that the initial act of the intellect is more common and better known to us than the act of the will. But Aristotle oftener than not speaks about the more obvious, and hence we find him saying little about the will, although some things follow from his remarks that he would have talked about later had he considered the matter.
The third objection against Aristotle does make a valid point, namely, that each contrary has a concept proper to itself which is grasped through a proper species; nevertheless discursive or inferential knowledge, where one item is naturally prior to another, can be the source of knowing something about the other. In this way one can expound the statement in I De anima: "By means of the straight line we know both itself and the curved." For judgment is not a function of simple apprehension, but involves a comparison of propositions. Qualified knowledge of one thing, however, can be simply apprehended through the species of another, to the extent that its privation is included, not in the essence or essential notion of the other, but concomitantly. As apprehended simply, then, formal knowledge of one contrary is virtual knowledge of the other, just as formal knowledge of principles is virtual knowledge of conclusions. And if some volition, such as choosing perhaps, first requires some judgmental knowledge about what the choices are, one of the contraries could be known through the other in this way, though at times the choice runs counter to that judgment. As for the second type [namely, discursive knowledge], the same knowledge of contraries has to do with one of them simply and with the other in a qualified sense. And this suffices for the will to select either of the contraries shown to it in this fashion, and so it can act in contrary ways. Hence it can also select contraries in a simple or unqualified sense, because they are not opposed to each other except in the sense that one is a privation of another. It is not under this privative aspect, however, that each is able to be willed, but rather inasmuch as both are something positive, it seems.
The Will as a Rational Faculty
If one objects that a rational potency has opposites in its power only when it is not determined to one and that otherwise it does not, I say this is not so. If it were, there would be no difference between the opposed rational and irrational potencies in terms of their power over opposites. But according to what is said in IX Metaphysics, the consequent is false; therefore, the antecedent is also false. Proof of the implication: an irrational potency, whether active or passive, insofar as it is naturally prior to the act that determines it, is in potency to opposites. This is clear from Aristotle's De interpretatione, Bk. II, and Boethius' commentary on the same (second edition), where he gives the example of water that can either chill or warm.
Also, if it did not have opposites in its power, even when actually determined to one of them (Le., in the very instant that it had settled upon this particular alternative), then no effect it is actualizing would be actually contingent. Now, the consequent is false; therefore, the antecedent is also. The falsity of the consequent is clear from what the Philosopher says in De interpretatione, Bk. I, where he speaks of the need to qualify this proposition: "That which is, must needs be when it is," because something does exist only contingently. Proof of our initial implication: an effect is not said to be potentially contingent unless its cause has the power to do the opposite. Neither, then, is an effect actually contingent, unless the cause actually causing it has the power to do the opposite at that very moment that it is causing the other, whereas your argument is that it has no power at present because it is now determined.
And if you say the effect is said to be contingent because [at a moment prior to such a decision, one could still say] it could have not happened, I object. Prior to that moment it was not a being; neither, then, was it an actually contingent effect before it existed. For we are speaking now of contingency as a mode of actual being, and about a "now" at the time it is actual.
Also, if something pertains primarily and per se to a subject, then its opposite does not pertain to that same subject per se, or even per accidens so long as the other remains. Otherwise, a demonstration of the reasoned fact, inferring an attribute of its subject, would not be based upon necessary premises. But to have opposites in its power is something a rational potency possesses primarily and per se as proper to it qua rational. For this is what distinguishes it from an irrational potency according to IX Metaphysics. Therefore, [it possesses power over the opposite even when the alternative choice remains].
Also, all [theologians] admit God is able not to predestine some predestined person at the moment such a one is predestined; therefore, his decision does not take away his power to do the opposite.
The Wiu and Intellect [Reply to the Initial Arguments] [To I] As for the initial argument at the beginning, it is clear that a rational potency, such as the will is said to be, does not have to perform opposites simultaneously, but can determine itself to either alternative, which is something the intellect cannot do. When it is objected that I am unable to be not seated, on the assumption I am sitting, my answer is this. A proposition about the possible would be false in the composite sense, because it would imply I could do both at once. In the divided sense, however, some would say that when the sitting occurs, this is so necessarily, according to that principle in De interpretatione, "That which is, must needs be when it is," and that nothing else is possible then, but only at the moment before, when the present situation could have been otherwise. And these persons see no way of saving the claim that now the will has a potency for the opposite of the state it is actually in. This is absurd, however, for it would mean that necessity and contingency are not properly conditions of being at the time they exist. But if that were true, necessity and contingency would never exist, for when something is nonexistent, it is neither necessary nor contingent. It would take too long, however, to explain now why the De interpretatione principle does not support their claims, because their argument is invalid on three counts, being an instance of the fallacy of consequent, of figure of speech, and of the simple and qualified sense. To put the matter in another way, one could say that when the will is in a certain state of volition, it is in that state contingently, and that its present volition stems from it contingently, for if it does not do so then, it will never do so, since at no other time does it proceed from the will. And just as this particular volition is contingently in the will, at that very moment the will is a potency with power over the opposite; and this holds for that moment in the divided sense. Not that it could will the opposite at the same time as it wills this, but in the sense that it has the power to will the contrary at that very instant, by not willing the other at that instant.
For at this very instant it could, nevertheless, posit the other, in a divided sense, and do so not necessarily but contingently.
[To 2] As for the second argument, if it is the will one is speaking about, then I say that it is able to do what it does with no conceivable predetermination to act, so that the initial determination, both in the order of nature and in the order of time, occurs in the very placing of its act. And if one claims that at that instant it can do nothing unless first determined [by something other than itself), this is false. But if the argument refers to the intellect knowing opposites, then it is true that the intellect can accomplish nothing externally unless it be deter-
The Will as a Rational Faculty
mined from some other source, because it knows contraries after the manner of nature, and is unable to determine itself towards anyone of these opposites. Hence, it will either act towards both or not act at all.
And if one concludes from this that the intellect does not suffice to qualify as a rational potency, it follows from what has been said that this is true. Indeed, if-to assume the impossible-the intellect and its subordinate powers alone existed, without a will, everything would occur deterministically after the manner of nature, and there would be no potency sufficient to accomplish anything to the contrary.
[To 3] As for the third, some say that the will has a choice of opposites so long as all fall within the scope of its first object, which-for the will-is assumed to be a real or an apparent good; whereas an act where evil qua evil is willed lies beyond its scope. Another assumption in regard to acts of willing and nilling is that the will can do either so long as its object contains something good or bad; but where the ultimate end is concerned, where nothing evil can be found, some assume that the will is no longer a rational potency. Others appear to hold that the will can be immobilized in regard to some things other than the ultimate end. Here, however, I omit discussing these things as well as the question of whether the will is determined to will the end, orwhere evil qua evil is concerned-whether its act must be one of nolition.
[To 4] The answer to the fourth argument about the sun is evident from our response to the first objection to the way of Aristotle.
[To 6] To the fifth, one could say-in accord with the principle set forth in art. I-that cold cannot be active as regards the essence of heat. Still, it can do something that makes another agent heat more effectively, for instance, constrict or contract a thing so that its interior heat is not dissipated but compressed to produce greater warmth.
As for the bouncing ball, though reflex motion is in some sense contrary to rectilinear motion at the locus where the one motion ends and the other begins, still the contrariety is not formal, for whatever moves something violently, moves it to every possible location it can acquire through such motion. If it can move it straight ahead, it will do so; if not, it will cause it to rebound, and this will go on until the movement is proportionate to the violence of the mover. As for these and other things that resemble rational contingency, such as reflected and refracted rays, etc., none of these are assumed to require in any irrational potency the sort of indifference that exists in a rational potency.
[To 5] To the last I say that all passive potencies without exception are of themselves in contradictory potency, although if the form were